The original iPod, 10 years later: a re-review

Don't look now, but the iPod --
yes, the original, less-space-than-a-Nomad iPod --just turned 10
years old. That makes the device older than Facebook, YouTube, Crocs, Vibram
FiveFingers, and the Motorola RAZR, to name a few brands and devices that have
penetrated general culture over the last decade.

But unlike old flip phones and tacky footwear, the iPod's
overall design remains iconic and its effect on our consumption of
music remains pervasive. It was not the first MP3 player on the
market, but it was the one whose industrial and UI design would
influence handheld gadgets for far longer than its product
lifetime.

In fact, it's not hard to argue that the original iPod is still
with us. It can be found most obviously in the iPod classic, but
its influences are also found in iOS and
even third-party smartphones and music players. Hell, even though
the original iPod is 10 years old, you could almost still use it
today as your go-to music player... or can you? Arstechnica.com got its hands on an original 5GB iPod from back
in 2001 so that we could re-review it with some 2011 flair --
clickwheel and all.

Form factor and navigation
Let's face it: this thing is bulky. It was bulky in 2001 and it's
still bulky now. Back then, the iPod was being compared against MP3
players with 4MB of built-in Flash memory and an external SD card
slot. It was already bad enough then, but today, carrying around an
original iPod in your pocket is almost akin to putting those velcro
weights on your ankles and then riding a unicycle to work.

Okay, now we're just being mean. The iPod couldn't help being
what it was in 2001, as hard drive based MP3 players were only
starting to become popular. The thing is, aside from the obvious
bulk in thickness, the iPod itself still feels decent in the hand
-- the width of the device is almost the same as an iPhone 4, a detail
that makes us wonder whether Apple
planned the iPhone this way.

The navigation on this thing is, well, very iPoddish.
(iPodesque?) The click wheel, used to adjust volume and navigate
playlists, was a new thing for Apple -- and the rest of the music
player world -- in 2001 and despite its novel shape, it really
appealed to the general public. Let's be honest: the click wheel is
fun to play with. You can even flip the lock switch and then scroll
around with abandon just for fun if you want to. (Not saying we did
this but… we did.)

The idea that one might need to use the scroll wheel to navigate
playlists was indeed novel when the iPod was first introduced and
it worked well for many years -- in fact, the iPod classic still
does this (albeit without a moving click wheel),
and up until 2010, so did the ever-popular iPod nano. Nowadays
though, with the advent of fancy touchscreen music players built
into our iPhones and Android devices, the concept seems old
fashioned. That's okay though, because decade-old technology is
allowed to be a little old fashioned as long as we can still use it
intuitively, which we can.